Valuations

Not too long ago, California’s housing market reached a nearly four-year high, but that momentum came to a halt in July when sales fell from the previous year for first time in 18 months. Now, according to the August report from the California Association of Realtors, the market is likely to stay down.

Homeowners are still overestimating their home values even though appraisers are posting higher values on homes. As a result, homeowners will likely need to restructure their refinance or bring a few extra thousand dollars to the closing table.

The Labor Day holiday is bound to impact real estate, but according to the latest report from a la mode, it didn’t dent appraisal volume as badly as it usually does. Kevin Golden, director of analytics with a la mode, explains how this week is different.

The latest National Appraisal Volume Index report from a la mode mirrored a lot of the same results from last week as the start of school takes focus away from house hunting. Looking at this week’s mortgage application report, will this trend change anytime soon?

Wow, we can’t believe it’s nearly been a year since HousingWire crowned its first HW Vanguard Award winners, the award reserved for the true “leaders of the year” in the housing industry, whether they operate real estate, lending, servicing, investing or any other corner of the housing industry. And now, it’s time to crown the HW Vanguard Award winners for 2016. But the nomination period is ending soon. Like today. Seriously, time is running out.

Home prices increased in July, and will continue to increase into next month and even next year, according to a new report from CoreLogic. That being said, there is still some evidence of a slow-down going forward. Here's a look at home prices now, and projections for the future.

It’d be pretty safe to say that Ocwen Financial struggled the past few years. But, the company got a little bit of good news last week, when a judge dismissed a lawsuit accusing Ocwen and Altisource Portfolio Solutions of overcharging homeowners for service. The question now becomes are the company’s next steps forward? Backward? Or right into the eye of another storm? All that and more in your Monday Morning Cup of Coffee.

In a move that is one of the first of its kind for the industry, Mercury Network, an appraisal management system, announced it acquired Platinum Data Solutions, a QC technology company. In light of the changes, HousingWire talked with Will Clemens, CEO of Mercury Network, and Phil Huff, CEO of Platinum Data, to see how the change fits perfectly into both of the companies.

For the first time in awhile, appraisal volume managed to increase for three consecutive weeks. While the four-week moving average did slightly decrease, it is not too far below the prior week, which was the highest non-holiday influenced four-week period since early spring.

This month inHousingWire magazine

[Subscribers only] Multigenerational living, where two or more adult generations live under the same roof, is becoming a growing trend in the U.S. Currently about 19% of Americans now live in a multigenerational household, the highest level since 1950. That amounts to about 60.6 million adults in 2014, up from 57 million adults in 2012. And homebuilders have taken notice, designing houses specifically catered to this segment.

Feature

Would-be homeowners are inundated with picture-perfect examples of new and remodeled homes brimming with upgrades. But in the real world, homebuilders and investors must calculate the rate of return on these sometimes fleeting trends, weighing what buyers want with what they can actually afford. This feature looks at which features buyers of different age demographics consider the most important, and what that means for sellers.

Commentary

We’ve found that the handling and posting of payments during bankruptcy has been a widespread issue in our testing environment. Specifically, there is increased risk exposure in pre-and post-petition payment application and treatment, both inside and outside of the bankruptcy plan. Servicers and sub-servicers have created manual workflow workarounds to address the issue, however, it does open the servicer up to more exposure to calculation errors.